refuge in the wind
by kazeno
Summary: [sd3] On Rolante mountain's slopes, a wounded man runs trailed by ghosts of the past...
1. haunted hawk

haunted hawk Denna Lockehart Normal Denna Lockehart 2 27 2001-10-27T08:26:00Z 2001-10-27T08:26:00Z 2 617 3521 Acer International Inc. 29 7 4324 9.2720 1 6 pt 8.15 pt 2 2 

haunted hawk

by Denna

            She was following him.

            He hadn't guessed on it, wouldn't have planned for it, but she was there, drifting at his back, spurring him on. Accusatory eyes burning holes in his back, laden with the pain of her, the sorrow and the anger.

            Some part of him knew that he was probably imagining it, that she was about as real as the mirages supposedly at the Mirage Palace and more than partly made of fever, pain and the wound throbbing at his side. Even if the ghost was hovering behind him, she was unlikely to be as angry as she seemed--she'd given herself up freely to shadow. He didn't believe a half of it, half-mad mind scrabbling around the sharp edges of dark sanity to see just how--far--he could go, searching again for truth and forgiveness as the ghost of _her_ lashed him with guilt and followed. She would always follow.

            Somewhere in the back of his mind Navarre burned, as it had always, would always burn, thieves scattering frantically from their meeting, falling... He'd carry that brand forever, seeing his people falling. No matter how good, ninja-trained, ranger-trained or otherwise, they couldn't stand against the hail of arrows raining death through smoky firelit skies.

            Her, shadow looming through the smoke as she ran. He'd killed her brother, yet she protected him. Maybe she regarded him her new brother, maybe... not. She rarely gave clues to what she--had been--thinking, save the time she'd mumbled his name in her dreams but she'd been hurt and half-delirious at the time. And falling, again falling, warm soft body impacting his with a thud and sending him sprawling to the ground.

            The ghost seemed to call his name, drifting in a smokethin whisper.

            He'd escaped when they were making sure of the dead. He hadn't even been able to take her with him. burdened with her body, he'd never have been able to slip free of the soldiers--thugs actually--thronging the area. So he'd slipped out like the thief he was, moving silently through the smoke like the ghost that trailed him now.

            There had been no time to think. He'd gotten on the first ship to leave Sultan, which turned out to be heading for Maia. From Maia he'd fought his way to Byzel, and taken the first ship to Palo, with people staring at his bloodied, tattered figure with a bandaged side, and then headed straight up the nearest mountain, trusting in instinct and luck not to fall off a cliff face--not that he really didn't want to, not that much. Driven by guilt, blinded by rage, led by pain and trailed by grief, with thought shoved off the loop entirely, it was truly incredibly lucky for him not to have stumbled off the side of the mountain and come face to face with a horde of angry ghosts.

            He'd failed them. Failed their trust, failed their care, failed their love. He'd _led_ them--he was supposed to be their leader, goddess' sake--he could cast magic, he was the best-trained. He should have done something! But no, when the building had gone up in fire and smoke all he had done was run out, make a target of himself and stare. Stare, as his men fell all around him.

            A wall loomed up in front of him, dark rock flashing angrily. Veering, he barely missed it, rock scraping against his side and exploding in a burst of pain. The path loomed in front of him, lit by flickering madness and reddish pain--he couldn't miss it. Real path or not, it didn't matter. It throbbed through his head, a line leading to--where? He didn't know. Graceful walk gone to staggers, wary, weary gone trying to watch everywhere at once, failing, and thus seeing nothing. His vision blurred and he stumbled--fell--

            --_fall forever, wind whipping his hair his clothing driving into his brain and _her_ there_--

            --hitting a pair of soft arms, as his head hit something hard, wooden, round. Almost unconscious, he looked up, screaming voices stilling and he realized they were really screaming wind.

            Blond hair fell in wisps around a tanned, hard face. Definitely female, with piercing blue eyes that were at the moment narrowed in confusion. Blond hair, falling down her back in a shimming, windwhipped waterfall, provided the background for the slender green-clad body.

            He felt like drowning. The ghosts stilled.

            List of Rolante blinked.

            "Hawk?"


	2. crying wind

crying wind Denna Lockehart Normal Denna Lockehart 2 17 2001-10-30T09:51:00Z 2001-10-30T09:51:00Z 2 635 3622 Acer International Inc. 30 7 4448 9.2720 1 6 pt 8.15 pt 2 2 

crying wind

by Lockehart

            If the healer hadn't personally told Lise Hawk would survive, she'd have thought him dead and a ghost. The young man certainly behaved like one: he drifted about the castle, startled all the Amazonesses, and sometimes went up and down the mountain, using his ninja skills to stay hidden and slaughter the monsters hereabouts. Most of the soldiers felt he was doing good, but all admitted to being spooked by his strange ways. The most Lise had seen of him was when she'd caught him sitting on the castle battlements, sketching: the face of a bright young woman, looking out of the slate with, she thought, quite an accusatory look. She still didn't know who the mysterious woman was--Hawk refused to tell.

            They had a sort of truce, both of them: Hawk showed no inclination to leave, Lise didn't bring the matter up, and they could both pretend he wasn't living on her charity. If it wasn't for some questions she wanted to ask him, Lise wouldn't even be looking for him now, lest her advisors start warning her about "spending time along with a strange male, and Navarrian to boot".

            She finally found him, up in the tower this time. Again sketching, chalk scratching against a piece of slate. The picture was of the rugged mountainous view from the tower windows, and Lise wondered about the girl she'd seen him draw. They remained that way for a while in companionable silence broken only by the sound of the chalk (to be gotten in abundance in the mountains, and Rolante's main exports) on the slate. Lise watched him, and relaxed, finally away from stressful dance of court proceedings.

            At last Hawk put the final touches on the sketch, careful not to smudge the chalk and looked up, oddly shy. He held up the slate to her, a faint grin showing on his face. "You like?" _Hawk, you're truly a ghost, a shadow of who you once was._

"You've got talent," Lise responded neutrally, mentally comparing the sketch with the view.

            "I could draw a more permanent one, if I could get my hands on some charcoal and parchment. Payment, you could say, for sticking around your castle so long when it's pretty clear I annoy half the advisors, startle half the soldiers and scare the children."

            "That... won't be necessary." Silenced again, they watched as the evening sun slanted rays into the west-facing tower.

            "Hawk, who _is_ that girl?" Lise broke the silence suddenly, and wished she hadn't. Hawk's face went _inward_: his eyes shuttered and froze over, his body stiffened. Finally he spoke.

            "She's... an old friend. Jessica." The way he spoke the name gave the work 'friend' different meanings. "She's dead."

            "I'm sorry."

            "You didn't kill her." Lise knew from Hawk and a few of her informants that Navarre's new king had crowned himself by bringing archers and some thugs, catching the Navarrian thieves' guild in a meeting and killing them all, then making those same thugs and archers the new army and assuming control of the city. Since the thieves' guild held the only real power in Navarre after the old king died, there was little resistance. She'd been looking at things from an outsider's view, Lise realized. Hawk was practically an outcast from his own land. His only family had been the thieves--all dead, killed in front of him, and then there was Jessica. His friend, his lover? Hawk had a very good reason for playing the ghost.

            "You didn't, either," Lise said, the words popping out of her mouth unbidden. He, she realized, was very much like her. He was probably angry that his country was captured, grieving over the death of friends and family, guilty that he hadn't been able to make a difference, especially when it came to one special person. She'd blamed herself too, for Eliott's capture. Overwhelmed by the 'should haves', Lise had kept busy with her work and squashed all that into a corner of her mind. Still, the conversation was bringing up a lot of things she didn't want to think about. No, she couldn't cry! Not here, not now.

            It was only when Hawk jerked up with a look of shock on his face that she knew how correct she was. "It doesn't matter, does it?" the ninja choked bitterly. "She's beyond my help now."

            "You aren't," Lise shot back and stormed from the tower before her emotions could get the better of her. The last she saw of him, Hawk was staring at her, but he looked thoughtful. Maybe that was good. Maybe.


	3. ride the wind

ride the wind Denna Lockehart Normal Denna Lockehart 3 18 2001-10-30T09:52:00Z 2001-11-02T07:25:00Z 2 720 4106 Acer International Inc. 34 8 5042 9.2720 1 6 pt 8.15 pt 2 2 

ride the wind

by Lockehart

            If Hawk had known how cold stone floors could be at this time of year--and day--he might not have decided on going unshod. As it was, clomping around the corridors at midnight in boots would probably have brought the whole Rolantean army down on him. Ninjas had special shoes for that sort of thing, but he'd left all of his back at Navarre. The moment he stepped out into the corridor, he almost abandoned his plan of seeing Lise, but he simply _had_ to talk to her, about their meeting in the tower, about her words, and most especially about her sudden exit and the unshed tears he'd seen shining in her eyes.

            Lise's room seemed empty and dark as pitch, but Hawk's ninja-trained eyes were as sharp as those of the bird he was named for, and could pick out things in the dark, to boot. The shadow half-hidden in the curtains hung along the wall shifted slightly as Hawk neared, and finally spoke.

            "Who is it?" She obviously didn't share his eyes. Light from the moon from the window gleamed on the blade of the spear she always carried with her.

            "Me." He spoke simply, surprised that she could summon up so much indifference in her tone when in the afternoon, when she'd told him not to blame himself, she'd sounded like she was talking more to herself than him. perhaps she simply refused to show such emotion to anyone not a friend.

            "Hawk?" Now she sounded surprised; why was that? He crossed the room to her, drew the curtains open so he could see her face illuminated by moonlight. She'd been crying, he realized; her eyes were blotchy and red, although that faded to a pale pink in moonlight.

            "What- you've been crying." When she turned her face away to look out, he continued, knowing that he was right. "You were talking about yourself, weren't you? -When you said that I didn't--kill her--you were trying to reassure yourself. You've been running from it." He paused expectantly.

            "You're right," she admitted. "I-I have to. Amazonesses respect strength, you should know that. There's so much that has happened here, too much. We're barely at half strength after the invasion, and there's the shock of Eliott--my father..." She turned to face him, suddenly fierce. "My people need a strong leader! They have to see me strong, to gain the courage _they_ need to go on. I can't think about things like that, I can't!"

            Flinging herself at him, she made a rough grab for his shirt and buried her face in it, shoulder's shaking. It took Hawk a moment to realize she was crying. Tentatively he patted her head, then sighed and simply let her cry herself out. When she finally fell silent, Hawk offered her a handkerchief.

            "Maybe that's what you needed to do all along," he offered. "Let it go." Pausing in the middle of wiping the tears off her face, Lise regarded him with a suspicious stare and sniffed.

            "Fine thing to say. It's what you need to do too."

            "Maybe, maybe not. Different people have different ways of dealing with problems."

            "And your is to run insanely up a mountain." Another acerbic sniff. "Pigheaded men."

            Hawk smiled at her, feeling Jessica pressing down on the back of his skull like a weight. He didn't want to let go, couldn't let go. Not yet. He came out of a short reverie to find Lise looking at him oddly. The silence seemed to stretch uncomfortably long.

            "Hawk?"

            "Hn?"

            "Stay while, won't you?" Lise sounded tentative, unsure. When he didn't answer her at first, she clapped a hand to her mouth, as if just realizing she'd said something she hadn't meant to. In the moonlight, the queen of Rolante looked like a young girl waiting for her first kiss. Well, maybe it was. He could read the look in her eyes; see the unspoken need burning like a fire.

            "You know I can't forget Jessica--"

            "I know! I want this, but"--she flushed, but continued bravely--"but I also need someone who can treat me like a friend, who won't be... attached, who won't make a fuss if I have to make a marriage to strengthen Rolante or cement an alliance... Please, Hawk."

            When he replied, it wasn't with words, and for a while, Jessica seemed to stop pressing on his skull.

Okay, explanations. First of all, I hadn't finished playing Seiken Densetsu III when I wrote this trilogy of fics, so I didn't know the ending. Secondly, the scenario I was playing was _Angela's_, not Lise's, so I don't know if Eliott lives or dies. For the sake of great dark angst, I'm going to assume that he got possessed by the dark prince and Lise was forced to kill him. Okay? That's because it's not fair if Jessica can die and Eliott doesn't which makes the angst balance a little off. (lise is not as angsty as hawk, eh heh heh) Third, don't kill me for writing Hawk and Lise together. It's just fun. Mwahahahaha. Beware the insane fanfic writer with a penchant for odd pairings (I once had an idea for a pairing: ffviii's fujin and rk's soujiro. weird ne?). 

-Lockehart (2-11-2001)(the notes were written later than the stories)


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